Old Wine New Flasks; Reflections on Science and Jewish Tradition

Hoffmann, Roald, and Schmidt, Shira Leibowitz

ISBN 10: 0716728990 / ISBN 13: 9780716728993

Published by W. H. Freeman and Company, New York, N.Y., 1997

About this Item

xii, 362, [10] pages. Heavily illustrated, including 10 color plates. Some Hebrew and Yiddish but this is an English language work. Inscribed by the author (Roald Hoffmann) on the front free endpaper. Inscription reads: For Maxine and family with friendship, Roald, in Ithaca, 1997. Includes a post care with a photograph of Cordoba and a hand written note which states: Dear Maxine, You don't have to be religious, etc. to enjoy this book. See a good photo of me in Plate 6. with affection Roald 8/28/97. Includes Preface, Epilogue, and How We Came to Old Wine, New Flasks, With a Little Help From Our Friends. Also includes Notes, Credits, Glossary of Hebrew and Yiddish, and Index, as well as chapters on Is Nature Natural; A Sukkah from an Elephant; You Must Not Deviate to the Right or the Left; Bitter Waters Run Sweet; The Flag That Came out of the Blue: A Play in Three Acts and Two Intermezzi; Signs and Portents: No Parking in the Courtroom; Pure/Impure; and Camel Caravans in the Pentagon. Roald Hoffmann (born Roald Safran; July 18, 1937) is a Polish-American theoretical chemist who won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He has also published plays and poetry. He is the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters, Emeritus, at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York. Hoffmann received the 1981 Nobel Prize in chemistry, sharing it with Japanese chemist Kenichi Fukui. Shira Leibowitz Schmidt is an engineer, translator, essayist, mother of six, and teacher of English as a foreign language at Netanya Academic College in Israel. The religious convictions and expertise of the authors of this book differ. As a consequence, Old Wine, New Flasks explores a dialogic, contrapuntal form. Many of the chapters are exchanges or debates. In this way, the underlying tension of the agnostic and the religious is exposed, and two faces of contemporary man and woman come into view. The authors contend, in structured harmony (and not taking themselves too seriously), with a shared respect for the underlying unity of all knowledge. Such contention is actually a time-honored way of Jewish debate. And, in another way, such debate is at the heart of science. Exploring the fundamental harmony along the continuum between scientific inquiry and religion, the authors of this text examine a series of encompassing issues such as purity, perception, authority, precision, and the supernatural comparing how each is handled in the realm of science, art/poetry and Jewish scholarship. The result of the study provides a range of contemporary values that arrive at a respect and appreciation for the underlying unity of all knowledge.

Seller Inventory # 81844

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Old Wine New Flasks; Reflections on Science and Jewish Tradition
• Publisher: W. H. Freeman and Company, New York, N.Y.
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0716728990
• ISBN 13: 9780716728993
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Printing [Stated].
• Condition: Very good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very good
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Jews
  • Zionism

About this title

Synopsis

Exploring the fundamental harmony along the continuum between scientific inquiry and religion, the authors of this text examine a series of encompassing issues such as purity, perception, authority, precision, and the supernatural comparing how each is handled in the realm of science, art/poetry and Jewish scholarship. The result of the study provides a range of contemporary values that arrive at a respect and appreciation for the underlying unity of all knowledge.

Review

A felicitous meeting between an Israeli engineer and an American chemist who is also a Nobel Laureate has produced one of the most unique books the reviewer has come across in years...This is my nomination for the 1997 National Jewish Book Award. -- The Western Jewish Bulletin, November 7, 1997

If you like detective stories, or crossword puzzles, or intellectual games, you're missing pleasure by not reading it. -- Endeavor, Vol.22, 1998

The authors have presented a well-written, concise, and thoroughly enjoyable reconciliation of the old, the new, and the scientific...All in all, the book is a new flask filled with some very fine old wine. -- San Francisco Viewpoint, Sept.19, 1997

The complexity of the book mirrors the complexity of truth itself. Bits of science and Jewish lore are tossed together with poems and diagrams of chemical structure and correspondence between the authors and colleagues, e-mail discussions, scripture, basic lessons on physics, law and art. The authors don't apologize for this lack of focus, though readers may find it frustrating. "We tell stories, inherently digressive the way real life is," they write. Their digressions are enchanting, but sometimes they play in too many different keys at once. -- The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, K. C. Cole

This book will read with pleasure by those who adjure the simplistic, enjoy complex ideas, and have abandoned hope for definitive answers for unanswerable questions. -- Endeavor, Vol.22, 1998

This is a very different kind of book, often insightful, occasionally hillarious, never dull. We recommend it for those who live either within the world of science or the world of Judaism and would like to walk - or dance- on a bridge that has been constructed to connect the two. -- St. Louis Jewish Light, February 18, 1998

Throughout, Old Wine, New Flasks is a remarkable blending of earnestness and playfulness, learning and imagination, prose and poetry, rigorous scientific thinking and critical humanistic considerations. Indeed, the book is a validation of the philosophy of Torah U-Madda, of the union of Judaism and culture, religion and secularism. -- The New Leader, March 9-23, 1998